


Remedial Paintball 401

by TheRepeat



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dramedy, Episode: s03e04 Remedial Chaos Theory, F/M, Flashback Heavy, Mutual Pining, Paintball "episode", alternate season 5, everyone can see it, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28817499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRepeat/pseuds/TheRepeat
Summary: From: “I wonder what happened in those other timelines. I gotta say, I hope this is the real one because I just found a nickel in the hallway. …If you guys don’t wanna eat the pizza then I’m fine with shoving the rest of it in the fridge.”To: "What better way to celebrate our grand reopening—and to build morale due to our dwindling student population compared to the 2011 school year—than to host an inaugural paintball game!”Two years after Abed goes to get the pizza, the study group is reunited by a paintball game.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger, Shirley Bennett & Britta Perry
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27





	1. Prelude

_“Aaand good morning and welcome back, students of the new and improved Greendale! For any new faces here on this fine first day of school, the mysterious voice you’re hearing overhead is that of your gracious host, Craig Pelton. But please, call me Dean. Ahahaha.”_

**Group Study Room F – August 2013**

**Present day**

The table was emptier than usual. Considering yesterday, Pierce’s seat was vacant, leaving barely half of the table’s seats taken. With only Troy, Abed, Shirley, and Annie here, and having taken their usual seats by habit, the seating sure was lopsided. Abed gestured to Troy to see if he wanted to shift to Britta’s old seat, but Troy shook his head.

_“As you may know, after we closed down last year thanks to the timely discovery of a nasty little gas leak (and more than a little asbestos), everyone’s educations had to unfortunately be put on hold.”_

Boos came from the PA system.

“Does he have a soundboard?” Annie asked. Shirley shrugged, bewildered.

 _“Oh, you guys, always busting my chops! Hahaha, no worries. We’ve since hired a new financial director to count the beans, and thanks to everyone’s efforts, Greendale is in better shape than ever! And what better way to celebrate our grand reopening—”_ the Dean’s voice lowered to a mumbled aside— _“and to build morale due to our dwindling student population compared to the 2011 school year—”_ back to normal volume, _“than to host an inaugural paintball game!”_

Stock sound effects of cheering children came from the soundboard this time.

.

**Cafeteria**

Jeff’s fork stopped moving mid-stab of his hash browns. “You’re kidding me.”

Everyone else in the cafeteria had likewise frozen to their spots, eyes locked on the overhead speakers.

 _“Ahaha, now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Dean! What are_ YOU _thinking!’”_

Jeff shrugged. _Spot on._

.

_“Listen! I talked it over with our financial director, and we’ve put in a couple more rules to MAKE SURE this doesn’t get out of hand this year.”_

“Tempting fate,” Abed said. “Classic blunder.”

.

_“Rule number 1! The paintball game ends at sunset today! That’s 8 p.m. MDT. And if a bunch of people are STILL standing after that, then that’s no skin off my neck: there’s just no winner! I’m NOT letting this go past midnight AGAIN.”_

Reassured ‘hmms’ and ‘ahhs’ came, which almost had Jeff wondering how people could be so easily pacified, until he realized it was just the soundboard again.

.

**Outside the Library**

_“Rule number 2! If the winner is too close to call, then there won’t be any winner! This one’s mostly for me, OK? I don’t want any hard decisions on my conscience.”_

It was a little harder to understand the PA when sitting outside on the steps, but not enough that Britta could have misheard. Some mixture of excitement and nervousness rushing through her, she immediately shut her book and jumped up to her feet.

Cupping her hands around her mouth: “I am Britta Perry! And I’m finally gonna WIN this one!”

A stranger called back, “Shut up!”

She pouted.

.

_“Rule number 3! Students and faculty can both join! Because it’s just more fun that way.”_

Jeff was nodding slowly, waiting for the Dean to get to rules that’d matter.

There was a long pause, a shuffling of papers. The Dean cleared his throat. _“…Anyway! All classes past three today have been cancelled to make time for the game, so paintball will begin at three o’ clock sharp! Have fun and be safe, Greendale! And most of all… welcome back!”_

Jeff blinked. “What the f—”

But Jeff’s disbelief was quickly interrupted by a deafening cacophony of explosions spewing from the PA, causing everyone in the cafeteria to hastily cover their ears. The incredible noise was immediately stopped, leaving Jeff’s ears ringing.

The Dean’s voice returned, much more somber. _“On behalf of Greendale, I apologize. That was meant to be some celebratory fireworks off of the soundboard, and apparently the volume’s, well. I don’t know whose fault that was, but, um… Sorry.”_

The announcement ended with a click.

Jeff dropped his fork, grabbed his books, and immediately stormed off.

.

He wasn’t the only one with the idea to head straight for the Dean’s office. A small crowd was bustling outside, actually giving Jeff pause to smile for a bit. He recognized Vicki and Garrett among the discontented crowd. Having been away for a year seemed to make _everything_ nostalgic.

Jeff started elbowing through them to get to the office—sure was nice being so tall—and he found Leonard standing closest to the door.

Leonard snorted. “Look who it is. Study group getting back together to steal another win?”

“Shut up, Leonard, you probably kept coming to classes during the gas leak.”

Leonard shrugged, unable to argue. Jeff pushed past him and banged on the Dean’s door with his fist.

From inside came a muffled “Jeffrey?” Hard to hear over the agitated crowd behind Jeff, but it sounded like the lock was turning. The door opened a half-inch and the bespectacled Dean Pelton peered through. His face lit like a child’s when he saw Jeff, who faked a half-smile back. “Oh, Jeffrey! I’d know that angry knock anywhere! Aw, and I was starting to worry that you wouldn’t be coming back this semester.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jeff deadpanned. “Let me in, wouldja?”

There was another voice from inside, again hard to hear, but the Dean turned and shushed them. Back to Jeff, “Of courrrrrse! Come in! I’ll prepare some coffee, maybe a snack? Do you like pizza rolls? I don’t _have_ any, but… Oh, just get in here already.” He opened the door just enough for Jeff to squeeze through, and was fortunate enough that the slow Leonard was the first to try to follow, making it easy for the Dean to slam the door behind Jeff and lock out the crowd once again.

Jeff was ready to launch into his “this is a terrible idea” speech he’d been planning the whole walk here, but he discovered that not only was he not the first one with this _idea,_ but he wasn’t even the first one to be _let in._

“Annie?”

From her seat on the couch, Annie wasn’t quite meeting his eye. She smoothed out her skirt and sat up straight and prim. “Jeff-rey.” The stilted delivery carried the punch of someone trying out a word for the first time.

“An-nie,” he answered in the exact same way, his brow furrowing. This was going to get awkward fast, so he turned back to the Dean. “I’m guessing she already gave you the speech I was just about to.”

The Dean shifted his weight from foot to foot, side-eyeing Jeff. “…If you wanted to say it again anyway, I’m sure _everyone_ would be happy to hear a classic…” He took a trembling breath. “…W-Winger Speech.”

Annie rolled her eyes, and Jeff exhaled impatiently: “That’s not what a Winger Speech is—Wait, forget that. SURELY you know this paintball game is gonna turn out exactly like the other ones. You really want the school to get trashed right after it’s finally reopened?”

Annie stood up next to Jeff, crossing her arms at the Dean. “At least you could have the decency to start the game on Friday!” she scolded. “It’s a Monday, _and_ it’s the first day of school! We’re going to have to go to class tomorrow!”

Jeff pondered that. “…Well, if the school’s in bad enough shape, I guess it’s possible for classes to be cancelled?”

Annie smacked him on the arm, “No! Bad!”

Jeff grinned. Wasn’t that nostalgic? She didn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable as she did yesterday, though there was always the possibility that the Dean being there helped a little.

She hadn’t noticed they were falling into their old routine again, and her ire returned to Pelton. “Look, Dean. You know these paintball games never turn out well for you. Why would you even _want_ to do another one this year?”

The Dean put his hands on his hips. “Didn’t you listen to the broadcast? Honestly!”

He shook his head and tsked, and Annie and Jeff shared an exasperated glance. Jeff’s heart started to race with a mix of nostalgia and more, and he had to seal his lips shut to not draw attention to it, out of fear their solidarity would break the second he mentioned it to her.

“It’s for morale, people! And it won’t go too late, so you’ll all be able to go to classes tomorrow. We were able to rehire our old janitorial staff thanks to our new finance director, so it’ll be fine!”

Jeff threw his hands up. “People are going to go nuts over the prize and turn it into another pop-culture-reference hell again! Good _luck_ getting that cleaned up overnight.”

The Dean frowned at him, confused. “You think people are going to go that crazy over two hundred dollars?”

Annie and Jeff stared at him.

“…Two hundred?” Annie murmured. There was a strangely disappointed note in her voice. “That’s all?”

“That’s barely enough for _one_ _textbook,”_ Jeff said, in a tone of voice that could fool someone into thinking he would actually buy textbooks at full price.

“Did I forget to mention the prize in the announcement or something?”

 _“Yes!”_ Annie and Jeff shouted together. Annie continued, “That changes everything, Dean! Compared to the prizes we’ve had before, that’s nothing! People aren’t going to take it seriously!”

“Why are you saying it like it’s a bad thing?” Dean countered, defensive. “I thought you were just about to _scold_ me for making it serious.”

Annie deflated. “I…”

She glanced uncertainly at Jeff, not expecting to meet his eye, but meet it she did. She had to quickly turn away from him and take a deep breath. “Alright! Good.” She smiled confidently. “Glad this is all cleared up.”

She turned on her heel, skirt spinning, and she marched over to the door. After unlocking it, she flung it open, and the crowd outside fell silent in expectation.

With that same smile, Annie proclaimed to the mob, “It’s just two hundred bucks.”

She was answered with an amalgam of relieved sighs, disappointed grumbles, and feelings in between. Regardless, the crowd began to disband, pacified for better or worse. Not sparing a glance at Jeff or Pelton, Annie hugged her books to her chest and hurried away. Off to her locker, Jeff guessed.

The Dean leaned back against his desk. “It really is nice to see you again, Jeffrey.”

Jeff glanced at the Dean, whose head was tilted, eyes were glazed, and smile was fond. “Yeah,” Jeff grumbled. “Back at Greendale, where dreams go to die.”

“Oho, classic Winger!” The Dean leaned a little closer. “Not gonna lie, that looked just like old times! Jeff-and-Annie, back at it, ahaha. Are you two friends again?”

Jeff looked at the door. “…No, not really. We just saw each other yesterday, that’s all.”

“Oh really! Think the, haha, the ol’ study group will see a big comeback this year?”

Jeff grinned at him. “Wouldn’t count on it, Dean.”

“Aw. You sure?” Pelton sat on the edge of his desk and began kicking his feet. “You know, you never even told me what happened. I walk into the study room one morning and POOF, you aren’t there!”

“I know. You tracked me down later that day by stalking my schedule.”

“I _worry_ about you, Jeffrey!”

“I’m well aware.” Jeff gave a casual wave goodbye and went for the door. “Later, Dean.”

…

**Troy and Abed’s New Apaaaartment – September 2011**

**Two years ago**

Abed waggled the hot pizza slice in his hand. Partially a thoughtful gesture, partially to cool it off. “I wonder what happened in those other timelines.”

He paused to give Jeff a chance to chime in and correct him, but it never came. Oh well.

“I gotta say, I hope this is the real one because I just found a nickel in the hallway.” A grin and a flash of said nickel, and Abed was back to eating pizza.

Munch, munch, munch. Why was everyone just standing around? “If you guys don’t want pizza then I’m fine with shoving the rest of it in the fridge.” He gestured with his slice. At Annie, “Pizza?” At Jeff, “Pizza?” At Shirley, “Pizza?”

Grumbles along the lines of “fine” and “we get it” came from the rest of the group, who reluctantly shuffled to their seats around the table. Abed separated the three pizza boxes and opened them, while Troy went to the kitchen for paper plates and everyone else moved their untouched Yahtzee sheets out of the way.

Troy came back with six paper plates, notably reaching over Pierce to hand Shirley hers. The seventh plate for Pierce never came. Pierce rolled his eyes and pulled a box closer to him so he could use the top as his plate.

Then, it was eating in silence—relative silence, since The Police was still going strong—for about thirty seconds. A long time, for this group.

Abed eventually tilted his head, curious. “Something’s not right.”

“You think?” Britta spat.

“Yep.” Abed pointed around the table. “I thought we’d have cut away to another timeline by now. All the interesting stuff probably happened while I was gone, not to mention half a minute of silence would pretty much only happen off-camera in modern media.”

“Abed,” Britta groaned.

“There are no cameras, and no other timelines,” Jeff said, exasperated.

There was the Winger quip that Abed had been looking for! “Sure there are. Right over there.” Abed grinned and gave a double thumbs-up at some invisible audience behind Troy, but surprisingly, Troy gave him a small ‘cut it out’ gesture.

“Oh.” Abed’s expression reset to neutral and he sat up straight, taking his pizza slice in both hands. “Social cue. Got it.” He nibbled at it and joined the others in silence.

For the rest, “godless hippie skank,” “sick, sad, twisted old man,” and “little makeout 101” were lingering storm clouds. And, ironically, it wasn’t until ‘Roxanne’ ended and _actual_ silence arrived that somebody finally spoke.

“You couldn’t’ve just let Britta sing the damn song?” Pierce demanded, and it took Jeff a moment to realize _he_ was suddenly a target.

“What are you getting mad at _me_ for?!” Jeff yelled. “You’ve heard Britta try something resembling singing, Pierce.”

Britta’s jaw dropped. “Excuse you!”

“Somebody tell me I’m wrong, then,” Jeff said, looking around.

Annie shrugged, not looking at him. “A little friendship 101, Jeff: insulting people out of nowhere can really kill the mood.”

“I think the mood was already pretty dead,” Jeff snarked. “And yeah, I caught your code, and the mood was dead then, too.”

Annie gasped, offended.

“Pierce is right, Roxanne’s a great song,” Troy admitted. “Even Britta’s singing couldn’t ruin it. I’d be dancin’ right now instead of wishing Pierce was dead.”

Pierce rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother.”

“Hold on. What did I miss?” Jeff leaned forward and started meeting people’s eyes. “What happened while Annie and I were—uh, in the kitchen?”

 _“Britta_ was smoking the devil’s lettuce in _your bathroom,”_ Shirley declared, pointing at Troy and Abed in turn.

“Yeah, I know. I could smell it when she walked past me a minute ago,” Troy said.

“Wha, Troy!” Britta exclaimed.

“I wasn’t _gonna_ say anything!” Troy said defensively. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“Aw, Troy,” Britta said warmly.

Abed sighed. “I should go take care of the smell in there. BRB.”

Britta sent a weak “Sorry” after Abed, while Shirley rolled her eyes and set her jaw.

Jeff glanced sideways at Britta. “All of that sure sounds like Britta, but what Troy said sure didn’t sound like Troy.”

“Hey, I really wasn’t gonna say anything about her weed,” Troy said.

“I meant what you said about Pierce.”

“Oh yeah. He’s dead to me.” Troy pointed at the TV stand. “Look what he thought would make a good housewarming present, _right_ when I thought we were having a moment!”

Jeff’s brow furrowed. “…He got you a dusty TV?”

“The thing that landed in FRONT of the TV! The horrifying thing that makes you want to cry but you _know_ you won’t because it’s not like an inanimate object can—”

Troy was talking himself into tears, so Jeff spared him the embarrassment. “Normally that’d be hilarious, but c’mon, Pierce. Read the room.”

“I tried to take it back!” Pierce exclaimed.

“Sure, you have a change of heart at the very last second,” Troy said. “Could’ve been ANNNYtime between having the idea, packaging it up, driving over here, or handing it to me, but nooo.”

Pierce threw his hands up, and he was almost allowed to try (and probably fail, honestly) to defend himself. Instead,

“COME ON!”

That was Shirley. The others were shocked into silence.

“Enough about the stupid toy! I’m mad at all of you! _Britta_ told me about your little scheme. How all of you made a little ‘agreement’ to not eat my baking!”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Oh my god. Shirley, you _have_ a baking problem! Now, I didn’t want to be the bad guy, but come on. We’ve tried talking to you about it, but you just keep on doing it.”

“EXCUSE me for being the only married woman in a group full of—of _horny_ toads just sitting around all night making googly eyes at each other!”

Troy gasped. “Googly eyes?” He looked to his right at Jeff, but Jeff just shook his head.

“Shirley, come on.” He reached all the way across the table—having to get out of his seat a little bit—to reach Shirley’s hand, which he put his hand over.

Abed entered the room, saw the tears in Shirley’s eyes and the group’s rapt attention on Jeff, and grinned. “Bring it home, Winger.”

“You don’t need to have a gimmick to be a great addition to the group,” Jeff said, with a smile. “Do you really think we’d only keep you around until you’re not ‘useful’ to us? Shirley, we have _Pierce_ in this group. Now, I know that’s a really, really— _really_ low bar, but bear with me. We like you, Shirley, and we like having you around. So cut it out with the baking, and be a normal friend, okay?”

Jeff sat back, feeling the tension fading and smiles coming from most of the rest of the group. Shirley smiled too, wiping away a tear. Though Annie’s smile never came.

“We’ve been through a lot together, guys,” Jeff continued. “Remember the pen? Remember the City College stormtroopers? Is a _pizza party_ really gonna make much difference in the long run? We have our fun arguing, but c’mon. We all know we’re gonna look back on this night and remember these:” He lifted a slice of pizza in one hand, and his Yahtzee score sheet in the other. “Food and fun with our closest friends. Now, bring it in.”

Troy tried to take him up on that hug. However, when he got a little closer, he hesitated, grinning confusedly. “Haha, uh, Jeff, are you wearing lip gloss?”

The table went silent.

Britta seized Jeff by the chin and turned his head in her direction. “Bubblegum—? Oh my GOD, that’s Annie’s!”

Jeff pushed her hand away. “Look, I can ex—”

“He kissed me while we were in the kitchen,” Annie stated coldly, crossing her arms.

“Whoas” and “seriouslys” and “dudes” came from the rest of the group, and they all waited for Jeff’s defense.

Jeff scoffed. _“I_ kissed _you?_ Don’t pretend it wasn’t mutual.”

Now, the surprise mostly descended into judgment and disbelief.

Surveying the situation, Abed tapped his chin. “Uh-oh.”

Troy didn’t seem to know what kind of frustrated gesture his hands wanted to make. “Bro, at _my housewarming party?”_

“Are we really going to go through this whole Jeff-and-Annie thing _again?”_ Britta groaned.

“No, we aren’t,” Annie muttered. “Jeff made his feelings on that pretty clear.”

“You know, I thought you were being kinda frosty,” Pierce said, with an approving chuckle.

“Clear?” Jeff said. “You compared me to your DAD. Call me crazy, but that’s a turnoff.”

Britta gagged, while Pierce laughed harder.

“Weird, Annie,” Troy said.

Annie gasped. “I did NOT mean it like that!”

“And yet,” Jeff said with a confident smile and a shrug.

“I thought we were having a _moment,_ Jeff!” Annie shouted. She was giving him Disney eyes, tears included. “I was just—just trying to tell you how much I _appreciate_ when you say you care about me. When you show something resembling vulnerability. And—then you go and insult me for it!”

Dread settled in Jeff’s gut as he felt the room turning against him.

“Not cool, Jeff,” Abed said.

Jeff needed time to compose. “Look—let’s all just take a deep breath. Okay? In…” He took in a deep breath, and the others followed suit, including Annie. “…Out.” Big exhale. “Yes, that happened. Yes, it’s another reason for the tension at this table. Troy and Pierce, Britta and Shirley, and now me and Annie. Okay. Great. We’ve aired everything out. But again, this isn’t going to be a big deal in the long run.”

Annie scoffed, but he ignored her.

“We’ve known each other for over two years! Remember…” Due to these _specific_ circumstances, his mind went to a particular hurdle their friendship had had to overcome in the past. He had to laugh a little at the memory. “Yeah. We’ll be fine. I know _this_ can’t be worse than the time Annie punched me in the face for kissing her after sleeping with Britta.”

Oho, that was _not_ the right choice of words in this situation.

Troy had to stand up and begin pacing, hiding his face in his hands. “Why. _Why_ would you bring that up.”

Jeff laughed nervously as he realized how much worse it sounded out of his head. “Okay, bad example—”

“No,” Annie said, “no, that’s a GREAT example! In fact, that’s a _classic!_ Classic Winger, playing with my heart!”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“I’M NOT!” Annie stood up too. “Are you really _that_ horny, Jeff? Do you _really_ just kiss me when you feel like it and not care at all about what happens afterward?” She put her hand over her heart. “I wasn’t _just_ thinking about that moment when we were kissing earlier. I was thinking about the next moments, too. I was thinking, ‘What’s after this?’ ‘Does this mean something this time?’ ‘This won’t be—won’t be like the Transfer Dance, right?’” She put her hands on her hips, disdain in her eyes. “…I don’t know why I expected anything from Jeff Winger.”

Britta giggled. Her eyes weren’t quite focusing, but she was clearly enjoying this. “Classic Winger, playing with hearts. Y’know, you were the one to tell us not to enable Shirley’s baking. Actually, weren’t you the one who told us it was a problem in the first place? Do you just not like her food?”

Shirley’s expression turned to ice. “What.”

Pierce laughed heartily. “Ohoho, and you were just saying you _don’t_ like being the bad guy, Jeff. Maybe you bring it on yourself.”

Jeff tensed. “No. No, I’m _not_ the bad guy again.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot this is the same dude that ran screaming into the study room with a fire axe in his hands a couple weeks ago,” Troy said.

“You godless, smarmy creep,” Shirley snarled. She grabbed her purse and stood up, intending to leave.

“No, hold on,” Annie said, halting Shirley with a gesture. “If someone’s going to leave, why would it be you, Shirley?”

Annie crossed her arms. Everyone stared at Jeff, eyes boring holes.

_Hold on…_

Jeff was at a loss for words, his eyes turning down.

_…Am I actually the bad guy?_

He stared at his hands.

_‘I’m going to have to ask that you stop being my friend.’_

“…Yeah,” Jeff murmured. “Yeah, I should go.”

While Jeff pushed his chair away from the table, then stood, then grabbed his coat, then went to the door, and then finally walked out, not a sound came from the rest of the study group.

Until, when the door clicked behind Jeff, Annie rubbed her hands together and said, “Alright, Britta. It’s party time. Hit it!”

“You got it!” Britta went to her iPod and started ‘Roxanne’ from the top.

The group was dancing in no time, merriment despite Britta’s truly atrocious singing. As if the whole incident was forgotten.

Sure enough.

Soon, while the others were still enjoying themselves, Troy tugged at Annie’s sleeve and pulled her aside into the kitchen. In a low voice, “I feel kinda bad.”

“About Jeff?” Annie said, with a smile. “He’ll be fine, Troy. Sometimes his ego just _really_ needs to be taken down a peg. But, if…” She took a breath. “If this doesn’t just roll off his back like it always does, then we’ll make up when we see him on Monday. I mean, we determined last year that we’re some kind of unbreakable supergroup, right?”

Troy stared her in the eye. “…And you’re really alright? I mean… Y’all _kissed.”_

Annie waved it away, her smile getting a little more forced. “Y-Yeah. It’s really no big deal.” She looked away from him. “With Jeff, it never is.”

“Okay. I’m trusting you on this one.”

“Thanks, Troy.” She clapped once, smile returning. How forced it was was a question Annie probably couldn’t have answered herself. “Now! Let’s get back to the party!”

.

**Cafeteria – Next Tuesday**

“What the hell…? We all assumed you were sick.” When Jeff didn’t immediately look up from what was left of his lunch, Britta kicked him in the foot, which did the trick. “Well? Explain yourself, Winger.”

“What’s there to explain?” he said. “I dropped Biology.”

“Wow, even after all that trouble you went through to get into it?”

“Especially after that.” Jeff shrugged. “I don’t have any classes in common with you guys anymore, so no need to study together.”

He flashed her a cheeky Jeff smirk, which really dug under Britta’s skin. “I swear, if this ends with you coming at the table with an axe again…”

“Hey, don’t give me any ideas.” He stood up with his empty food tray in hand.

Britta rolled her eyes. “Hold up, Jeff.” She stopped him with a palm on his chest. “Is this about the Annie thing this weekend?”

“I’m surprised you even remember it. You were still stoned by the time I left.”

Britta absently twirled a curl of hair around her finger. “…I mayyy have a slightly foggier recollection than most, but I still remember the high points, probably.” She shook her head. “Annie feels like she made you mad.”

“Oho, mad? No, definitely not. No worries there.”

Jeff tried to walk off again, and Britta’s hand stopped him again. _“Jeff.”_

“What?”

She looked him in the eye. “Why’d you drop Bio, man. For real.”

“Because I thought it’d be best if I left the study group.” He tilted his head, kind of teasingly. “For real.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Because. A few weeks ago I get kicked out, and this weekend it happens again. And a couple weeks from now, I bet it’ll happen a third time. And…” He finally broke eye contact. “And I’d rather get ahead of the ball, this time.”

He gently pushed her hand down, and this time she didn’t stop him from walking away.

…

**Group Study Room F – August 2013**

**Present day**

Shirley blinked. “Two hundred dollars? My goodness, that’s so… realistic, for once.”

“Suspiciously realistic,” Abed said. “A prize that is desirable, but not worth us going Mad Max on each other. Strangely disappointing.” He glanced around the study room, still littered with hordes of unpacked boxes laying in stacks. “Maybe it’s all that’s left of the school’s budget, now.”

Annie had been beaming from ear to ear ever since she walked in. “Frankly, I’m happy this paintball game will be so low stakes,” she chirped. “I’m looking forward to some friendly competition for a change.” She cheerfully tapped Shirley’s arm with her fist. “Should be a _great_ teambuilding exercise, guys!”

“I dunno if I wanna participate,” Troy said, frowning. “I know if me or Abed wins, you’ll just have us put the prize towards rent instead of something fun.”

Annie gasped, offended. “And knocking two hundred bucks off of that doesn’t excite you?! We still get to save two hundred dollars that _would’ve_ gone to rent!”

“It’s just not the same as blowing it all on something dumb!” Troy cried, and he pouted and buried his head in his arms.

“Okay, what about this?” Annie said, eagerness returning. “If we win, we split the prize four ways. Fifty bucks each, that we can all spend however we want. _Mine_ will go to rent, but yours is allowed to be dumb.”

Shirley smiled and nodded, but Abed and Troy still seemed unenthusiastic.

“Come on, guys! Even if we don’t win, aren’t these paintball games always a lot of fun?”

“Could there be another reason you’re trying to push us so hard to enter?” Abed asked.

Annie scoffed. “L-Like _what?”_

Abed showed his phone to the group. “Jeff asked me if I’m entering.”

“Oh,” Annie said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, “he’s back this semester?”

“Yes, he said so yesterday at the hospital, you compared schedules and saw you were both taking Criminology together, you said “Oh, that’s—that’s nice!”, then he had to leave.”

Annie played with her hair. His a-little-too-excited impression of her wasn’t _inaccurate._ Even nailed the stutter.

Grinning widely, Troy leaned over to get a look at Abed’s phone. “Is Jeff entering?!”

“Yep.” Abed angled his phone so Troy could see the text.

_playing paintball later. u?_

“Did you text him back yes?!”

“No. You can see the whole text history.”

“Iiiiit was rhetorical.”

“I don’t think it was.”

“Well we’re _definitely_ entering!” Then, suddenly pokerfaced, Troy looked up at Annie. “It’s still cool if we do, right Annie?”

“Um, yeah! Sure.” Annie shrugged with forced nonchalance. “I guess it’s still okay.”

Shirley eyed her suspiciously. “Just okay, huh.”

Annie turned to her nearest friend. “What about you, Shirley?” Annie bubbled. “Are you going to enter?”

“I wasn’t sure, but now I feel like it’s my responsibility to,” Shirley muttered.

Shirley’s gaze was too sharp for Annie to meet without feeling like her very soul was being pierced, so she had to break eye contact. “W-Well, great! We should meet up here at three o’ clock.” She gathered her books and stood up. “See you soon!”

.

First class of the day was Criminology, because it just had to be. Annie was more distracted than usual for a first day—albeit not enough to stop her from pestering her professor about the syllabus; eventually he started groaning whenever she’d raise her hand, at one point imitating her delivery of “Professor Hickey! Professor Hickey!” to laughter from the rest of the class—as she couldn’t help but sneak furtive glances across the room. Jeff sat by the far window, texting God knows who and leaving his notebook closed. Honestly, how was he supposed to keep track of exam dates and grade percentages if he wasn’t even writing any of this down? She _knew_ he wouldn’t look at the online syllabus until the final was coming up and he needed to calculate what he had to do in order to pass. Sheesh, Criminology wasn’t some blowoff class, even if it seemed like the professor didn’t really want to be here either. If Jeff didn’t get his act straight, by midterms he’d—

Annie took an impatient breath. Some things never change.

Yeah, this year was going to be normal. She was going to have some fun with her friends at a (for once) normal paintball game, and then the year was going to go on as normal. For better or worse.

…And all of that would’ve been an admirable assessment of the situation, if the prize hadn’t changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't hate season 4 at all, but I think it’s really funny to have a perfect excuse to just remove it from the equation.
> 
> I rarely ever touch straightforward romance stories at all and am woefully out of practice, but lately I've been experimenting and getting out of my comfort zone with genres and settings. Plus, I have some ideas I really think y'all will like.


	2. Art

**Greendale Memorial Hospital – August 2013**

**Yesterday**

“Oh my god!” Annie exclaimed as soon as she entered the room and witnessed the bedbound old man. “Pierce! Are you okay?”

Annie was the last one to arrive, since she’d been at work when she got the call. Abed and Troy had gotten here first, and Shirley after, now sitting in the corner with her purse in her lap. And…

“Britta?” A surprised grin grew on Annie’s face. “Wow, it’s been so long!” She went in for a hug.

“Hi, Annie,” Britta said with a smile, and she hugged Annie back.

“Why are you here?” Annie asked, beaming.

“Pierce texted me.”

“Uh, hello?” Pierce exclaimed from his bed. “Enough about her, I’m the dying one!”

A nearby nurse clarified, “He isn’t dying.”

Britta rolled her eyes, and Annie sighed with relief.

“It’s so good to see you, Annie,” Britta said. “Is that, uh, a Subway visor?”

“Oh! Um—yeah.” Must’ve absentmindedly put it back on after changing out of her uniform. She took off the green visor and set it on the side table next to Pierce’s sickbed. “Had to pick up a job because of the, whole, gas leak thing. Today was my last day since classes start tomorrow. Um, what about you?”

“Oh, I was homeless,” Britta said matter-of-factly.

Annie’s jaw dropped. “What?! If you needed somewhere to live, Troy and Abed and I could’ve—”

Britta smiled sagely. “No, no, I was homeless on purpose,” she soothed.

Annie was at a loss, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to tug on that thread, but fortunately, Pierce interrupted with an even more impatient “HELLO!”

“Hi, Pierce,” said Annie with a patient smile, and she approached the bed so she could take one of his hands. “Sorry for ignoring you.”

Pierce smirked. “That’s more like it. Even on my deathbed, Britta still won’t stop ogling you.”

Britta fake-smiled. “I was almost starting to think you liked me, Pierce. Never thought you’d let me know if you were hospitalized again.”

“Heyyy, pretty ungrateful. I could’ve left you off like our _other_ study group dropout.”

That took Annie a second. “…Jeff?” She frowned. “You didn’t text him?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed. He left the group two years ago.”

Annie didn’t really know how to argue that but nevertheless felt like she needed to. “Still—”

The nurse cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Hawthorne. By Jeff, did you mean Jeff Winger? Because we contacted him for you when you were unconscious.”

Everyone missed a beat in responding to that.

Britta turned to Pierce. “…He’s still your _emergency contact?”_

“Whoops. I thought I changed it to my brother.” Pierce scratched his cheek. “Aw, that’s right. I thought of it while I was playing this video game with him in a battle for our inheritance, but I never—oh, I’ll tell you guys that story some other time.”

“So Jeff is, ah,” breathing was hard for Annie all of a sudden, “coming here?”

Troy’s eyes widened as a sudden realization came upon him that today, oh boy, TODAY could be a big deal for this group. “Pierce!” He turned to his bedridden friend. “That troll doll was awful and I don’t regret torching it with lighter fluid at all, but I don’t think you’re sad—well that’s not true. I don’t think you’re _twisted—_ well, not that either. But I _don’t_ hope you die alone.” He side-eyed Shirley. “And I _forgive_ you, Pierce.”

Shirley rolled her eyes and hugged her purse tighter, defiant. Britta scoffed at her.

Pierce’s brow furrowed as he struggled with the joy of being forgiven and the annoyance at being insulted. Moreover, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing at all, my man,” Troy said with a wide grin, patting Pierce’s arm, “nothing at all.”

After another moment’s thought, Pierce decided to shrug and accept it.

.

This wasn’t the first time Jeff had been summoned to a hospital to deal with Pierce, and somehow, he figured it wouldn’t be the last. They hadn’t spoken since 2011, and yet here Pierce was, demanding more of Jeff’s time. _I’ll never be free._

He decided to take his time. See, he was in the middle of a very exciting cigar that he just couldn’t tear himself away from, so there was just no helping it. When he did leave home, he brought his finest pair of I-don’t-give-a-shit sunglasses to wear for the drive, though unfortunately nobody was there to see him wearing them before he entered the hospital and took them off.

Part of Jeff pitied Pierce. For _Jeff_ to be Pierce’s emergency contact after all this time, that must’ve meant that Pierce had at some point had the same falling out with the study group that he and Britta did, and probably an uglier one, considering. As Jeff waited at the front desk for a nurse to guide him, he mused that he should’ve done donuts in the parking lot to make Pierce agonize a little longer.

 _Eh… no, that’d be uncalled for._ There was always the off-chance Pierce wasn’t faking this time. The off, _off,_ off chance.

Thus, by the time the nurse showed Jeff into Pierce’s room, he was wholly unprepared for the notion that he wouldn’t be the only one there, much less that he’d be the last one there by far.

So he put on his no-shits sunglasses again (to make sure _somebody_ got to see that he honestly just didn’t care at all, really) and entered with a boast. “Alright, Pierce, let’s cut to the chase. What flavor of heart attack is it—”

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he stopped. Had to remove the sunglasses, too, just to be sure they weren’t the reason he was seeing what he was seeing.

His eyes scanned from left to right. Britta, Annie sitting at the bedside with cards in her hands, Pierce in the bed with cards in _his_ hands, Troy holding cards from the wrong game, Abed sitting by the window, and Shirley in the near corner. The whole gang, staring as blankly at him as he was at them.

“Hi,” Jeff began cautiously.

Abed stood, growing some referential smirk that Jeff was a little out of practice at identifying. “Jeff Winger,” he said, walking closer. “You son of a bitch!”

 _Oh wow, a self-reference,_ Jeff thought, as Abed hugged him and he numbly hugged back. “I’m apparently Pierce’s emergency contact,” Jeff said slowly, still gauging the reactions from his audience. “What’s going on?”

“Dehydration,” came a gravelly voice from behind Jeff. Jeff and Abed separated and moved aside to let a doctor into the room. Said doctor’s voice was deep, imperious; it seemed to silence the room on its own. “Mr. Hawthorne was suffering from dehydration when his brother called 911.”

“You have a brother?” Jeff asked.

Pierce waved the question away, mouthing ‘later’.

“It’s about time we got an answer,” Britta said. “Pierce, were you fasting or something?”

“N-No, I was, ah…” Pierce sighed. “I was preparing my… bequeathments, in the case of my death.”

“And that naturally involved a march through the Sahara in an Indiana Jonesian hunt for treasure,” Jeff added.

Troy was taken off guard and laughed. Reading Jeff’s snark over text was one thing, but he just wasn’t used to hearing Jeff in person anymore.

Pierce looked down. “Look, I—was thinking of the future, and…”

Annie put her hand on Pierce’s shoulder. “Are you okay, Pierce? Why were you thinking about—” in a hesitant whisper, as if she would otherwise speak it into reality, “passing away?”

Pierce squinted at her. “Huh? No, not MY future. Yours!” He gestured between the rest of the group. “Every one of you guys is already _at least_ well into your twenties, and you haven’t accidentally knocked anyone up or BEEN knocked up yet. It’s like you kids don’t know how to live anymore.”

Annie gingerly removed her hand from Pierce and scooted away as far as her chair would allow.

Pierce gestured at Shirley. “Except for you. You get it.”

Shirley shook her head rapidly and made frantic negative noises.

“Anyway. I… _happened_ across these liquid-nitrogen-cooled cylinders, for storage. And I thought, ‘what about Pierce Hawthorne needs _preserving_ more than anything?’”

“It’s telling that I don’t know where this is going, but I know it will make me upset no matter what,” Jeff muttered, to nods from the others.

“And more than that, ‘what do the others _need_ from me that I could _preserve?’”_ He glanced at Britta and smiled at her. “I thought of you first, Britta.”

Britta softened, and she could only blame their time apart for that. Maybe they were expecting the worst for nothing. They’d missed an entire year with each other; maybe now was the time to—

“So I decided to preserve my own hyper-virile sperm, in case you ever decide to stop being a lesbian and raise an army of gods.”

Britta’s smile did not change, but her hand covered her mouth, and something certainly died behind her eyes.

“Oh my _god,_ PIERCE!” Annie exclaimed. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Pretty messed up, Pierce,” Troy said.

“You are _the_ worst,” Jeff added.

“Do I get any?” Abed asked.

“Of course!” Pierce answered with a cheerful laugh. “I made enough for the whole study group! Plus Britta, since I thought of her first.”

“Oh god, when you say _thought of me,_ you don’t mean you—”

“What? I needed to fill the containers somehow! It’s not _my_ fault you were already in my brain.”

Shirley gagged.

“Can’t speak for everyone else, but _I_ don’t want your sperm, Pierce,” Jeff spat. “I impolitely decline.”

“I impolitely say ‘good for you,’ since you weren’t getting one,” Pierce rejoindered. “I made enough for the _study group._ (To be distributed following my death.)”

“I—Wha—” Jeff stammered, but didn’t have anything better than _I wasn’t good enough for your sperm?!_

The commanding voice of Pierce’s doctor resounded through the room once more, casting a hush over the broken study group.

“It’s a good thing you stopped when you did. You’re a lucky man, Mr. Hawthorne.” The man peered over his glasses with a sharp stare. “By my estimations, you were approximately one busted load away from death.”

Annie covered her mouth with both hands, looking torn between crying and hurling.

The doctor nodded at Jeff. “The rest of you have twenty more minutes to visit.” He then walked out, taking the silence with him and leaving the others shuddering with revulsion.

“Hear that, Pierce?” Troy said with a smug grin. “Looks like Jeff basically saved your life, if you think about it.”

Everyone stared at Troy. His confidence quickly withered under their eyes, and he moved to sit near Abed.

Pierce sighed. “Look, Jeff, you’re a… swell guy, and all, but we aren’t friends anymore. No hard feelings.” He coughed. “Besides, it’d be a waste if I made you any, since you’d probably just chug it like a glass of—”

“Aaand I’ve had enough.” Jeff clasped his hands together. “I doubt you’d invent a lie this pathetic, so it’s a _very small_ reassurance that you probably didn’t fake this particular near-death experience. And yet I feel like my time has been even more wasted than if this _were_ all a farce. See you around, Pierce.” After one last sardonic smile at the bedridden old man, Jeff took a step toward the door.

“Jeff!” Britta exclaimed. “Come on, none of us have seen each other since before the gas leak year! Let’s just talk for a bit. Small talk.” She smiled. “Like _acquaintances,_ that’s all.”

Britta tilted her head very slightly, indicating to her left, and Jeff’s eyes drifted that way, onto Annie. Annie met his eye, nervousness in her expression. Even after how long it’d been, he could still read that face of hers, echoing his same uncertainties.

Plenty of reasons to walk out right now, but none of them howled as loudly as the voice telling him to stay. Frankly, it took him longer than it should’ve to murmur a not-casual-enough “Sure” and back off from the exit. No doubt the awkward silence would be back soon, so he spoke quickly. “So, uh…” He gestured around the room. “They really closed Greendale for an _entire year._ What did you guys do in the meantime?”

Abed answered before anyone else could. “Annie and Troy worked at the same Subway, Shirley ran her sandwich shop as a pseudo-food truck, Britta was homeless and went to protests she didn’t care about, Pierce lounged around and _you_ worked retail.”

Silence for a beat.

“Well, that answers that,” Jeff said wryly, and got some smiles for it. “Except you. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned what you were doing while Greendale was closed?”

“Classified.”

“Of course, Abed.”

“Seat?” Abed gestured at a chair between himself and Troy.

Jeff glanced around again, and when nobody objected, he walked over and sat down.

He took a long breath, with an uncertain exhale. Room was quiet. Last time they’d all been together was… “Uh, how’s the apartment?” Jeff asked, nudging Troy. “You and Abed still hanging in there?”

“Uh-huh.” He gestured at Annie. “Plus Annie. She moved in with us a couple weeks later.”

“We’ve been the Three Amigos ever since,” Abed said. “Or Three Musketeers, or Three Stooges, depending on the episode.”

“Sounds right.” Jeff smiled at Annie. “Glad you finally got out of that Dildopolis.”

“Yep,” Annie said, nodding. “There was an… _incident,_ where I accidentally knocked my purse off of my desk and the gun misfired, that made me realize I should _probably_ start looking for places where I wouldn’t need a gun.”

Jeff blinked. “You had a _gun?!”_

“N-Not anymore! And that misfire didn’t hurt anybody.”

“That’s… good to hear.”

“Yeah.” Annie brushed her hair over her ear and smiled, tilting her chin down and looking up at him through her lashes. “Guess… I finally took your advice, and moved.”

“Yeah.” Jeff smiled back, and held her gaze. The blending of _this moment_ and the resurgence of _many past moments_ kept his eyes frozen there, like if he looked away he would lose this for another two years.

It had been a long time since Shirley had had to think the term “googly eyes,” but it was making a major comeback right now. Instead of her usual eyeroll and sigh, she figured it was time to intervene. “Ahem. Jeff?”

“Hi, Shirley. You’re looking great.”

“Thank you. Now, don’t you think it’d be best if you got going?”

Jeff was confused, while everyone else gave her offended looks. Even Pierce’s eyebrows went up.

“Shirley!” Annie exclaimed.

“Don’t you all look at me with those how-could-you eyes, you know as well as I do that nobody kicked out Jeff but himself. And Jeff, you know you coulda come back at any time during junior year, given one of those Winger Speeches and gotten us all in a big group hug like old times, butcha didn’t, you stayed gone. Now I figure you had a reason for that, and that reason never changed, or am I wrong?”

Britta scoffed. “What’s your deal, Shirley? We were having a good time, but you pick _now_ to air out a two-year-old grudge?”

“If anything I said was a lie, then Jeff can feel free to correct me,” Shirley said, eyeing him. “Right or wrong, you’ve got a thin line to walk here, Jeff. Don’t get too comfortable.”

“Maybe read the room.” Britta crossed her arms. “Could’ve brought that up when we _aren’t_ reuniting in a freaking hospital ward.”

“Anyone have popcorn?” Pierce asked. Abed shook his head.

Shirley glared at Britta and exhaled with annoyance. Then, she looped her purse over her shoulder and stood. “You know I’d love nothing more than to butt heads just like old times, but I need to go.” To the study group, “See you in the study room tomorrow morning.” To Pierce, “Get well soon.” To Jeff, a cold look.

Finally, to Annie, with Shirley’s expression softening: “…Be careful.”

Shirley walked out.

It wasn’t like Jeff had been given a chance to reply, but he didn’t even know what he would’ve said.

Troy’s eyebrows had been high and eyes wide since Shirley started talking, and he defused it now. “O-kay! Anyone else have a drama bomb they wanna drop?” He looked at everyone in turn, getting headshakes back, though Pierce seemed tempted for a second. Troy said, “Cool.”

“Cool cool cool,” Abed capped off. “I’m thirsty. Where are the water fountains?”

A nurse spoke up. “Oh, there’s one right down—”

Troy smirked and put up a hand. “Thanks, Ms. Nurse, but _I’ve_ got this one.” He nodded toward the door. “Right this way, Abed.”

“Cool.”

Annie looked at the door, then at Britta, and they both came to a realization of where this was going. Before Britta could come up with an excuse to leave Annie and Jeff alone in here with Pierce, Annie jumped up and chimed in, “Troy! I, I also have great thirst!”

“We know,” Pierce muttered.

Troy gave her a weird look, but he held the door open for her. Annie followed them into the hall, wincing at how that had come out.

A moment of awkward silence passed between Jeff, Britta, and Pierce. Jeff coughed, and was tempted to reach for his phone. Didn’t feel right to do that, though. In 2011, he wouldn’t have hesitated to pretend he didn’t have a care in the world, but 2013’s a different beast. Twiddling his thumbs wasn’t turning out to be a great alternative, though.

“So, uh, Pierce,” Jeff said, forcing a grin. “You’ve got a brother?”

“Yeah, and a scratchy throat,” Pierce huffed, annoyed. “All this talk of water, and no offer for me! This catheter isn’t exactly refreshing.”

The same nurse chimed in. “I’ll refill your cup, Mr. Hawthorne.”

Jeff was closer to the cup, and faster. He was on his feet and nabbing it off of the bedside table before she could take a step. “Thanks, Ms. Nurse, but _I’ve_ got this one,” he said with a smirk. “Be right back, Pierce.”

He glanced at Britta as he walked past, and she gave him an excited thumbs up.

The nurse pouted. “I-I have a nametag…”

.

Troy beamed when he noticed who was coming. “Jeff!” Annie and Abed turned. “See you found your way here.”

“There were signs directing to the restrooms, so that seemed like a safe bet.” With Pierce’s cup, he gestured at the fountain currently being obstructed by the three roomies. “Mind?”

“Water up, my friend, water up.”

Abed gave a secret fist bump to Troy that wasn’t very secret.

Jeff chuckled as he moved past them. “New catchphrase, Troy?”

“Abed and I were just workshopping it,” Troy explained.

Annie rolled her eyes. “They kinda assumed you’d chase after us.”

Jeff started filling the cup while giving her a cheeky grin. “Can you blame me? I owe you two New Year’s wishes.”

Abed interrupted. “No need. We relayed the spirit of the New Year’s wishes you gave to us, on to her, anonymously.”

Annie’s brow furrowed. “Wait, have you guys been in touch?”

Abed nodded. “Troy and Jeff and I still have a group chat.”

“I thought…” Annie trailed off. “Hm.”

“We didn’t ostracize Jeff just because he kissed you and then left the study group,” Abed said, and got a dumbfounded look from Troy.

“Dude!”

“Oh, whoops. What an embarrassing and accidental slip of the tongue.”

Jeff’s eyes were on the now-full cup instead of them; he stopped the water fountain and took the cup in hand. “Still working on your sarcasm inflection, buddy?” he asked casually.

“No, I thought this might be obvious enough. Anyway, we should head back. We’ve left Britta alone with Pierce.”

“Poor Britta,” Troy said. “We should add her to the boys’ chat.” He gestured at Annie. “You stay with Jeff and make sure he doesn’t get lost on the way back, okay?”

Annie wrung her hands. “The cup’s full, we can just _all_ go back.”

“Mm, right.” Abed went to Jeff, plucked the cup out of his hands, dumped it into the water fountain, and handed it back to him. “Whoops. Sorry.” He and Troy started walking off.

“Honest mistake, could’ve happened to anyone,” Jeff snarked after them.

He and Annie both sighed. Jeff placed Pierce’s cup in the fountain once again and held down the button to refill it.

Annie stood much less comfortably now. From a glance, Jeff could see she didn’t really know what to do with her hands, and she smoothed out her skirt more often than she needed to. He knew there were several possible reasons why she was like this, but he couldn’t stop his imagination from jumping to the worst ones.

And it wasn’t as if Annie didn’t notice Jeff’s slightly-too-stiff posture, or the way he was pushing the button so hard his fingertip was white. Not many people would’ve noticed it from someone as in control as Jeff. But when someone’s that good at concealing their body language, close friends need to be that much better on picking up on the little things. A skill that, apparently, was like riding a bike to Annie. Now, _why_ he was that tense? Of course they’d be a _little_ awkward after all this time, but his jaw was more firmly set now that the safety blanket of Troy and Abed was gone, and his free hand was clenched as if he were afraid of where it’d go if he didn’t keep it in check.

She rarely doubted _who_ was the reason Jeff left, but the _why_ was always something that stung to think about.

Despite Jeff’s traitorous thoughts and her own, Annie took a breath and convinced herself to smile. “So,” she said. Proud of herself for not letting her voice tremble. “Is it back to Greendale tomorrow for you, too?”

“Yep,” Jeff said, still looking at the cup and not her. “The ol’ stomping grounds. Can’t wait to see how it tries to piss me off this year.” He shrugged, thoughtful. “Then again, I hear the first day’s gonna be a half day.”

“Yeah.” She was already running out of casual conversation topics. “Um… so, what classes do you have tomorrow?”

Jeff frowned as he tried to recall. “Uhh… hm.”

“Jeff, have you _really_ not memorized your schedule yet? Don’t tell me you’re still relying on your phone alarms. Those are fallible!”

“Fallible, maybe, but if I miss a class, I can always come down with a flu.” Grinning, Jeff tapped his chin. “Need some new names for the sickness I’ll be making up this year… Any ideas?”

“Bad!” Annie said, pointer finger in his face. “Bad Jeff!”

He laughed and put his free hand up, play-defensively. “Alright, alright! I’ll stick to the old ones.” She smacked his arm. “Okay! No fake illnesses. _Only_ real ones.”

Annie sighed and shook her head, but she was grinning too. “Geez, Jeff. You really do never change.”

“I try to keep things consistent.” Big smirk.

“Well, not that you asked, but I’m looking _forward_ to this semester,” Annie said with a bright smile. “My first class tomorrow is Criminology.”

Jeff blinked. “Criminology? You’re kidding. Is it with Professor Hickey at nine A.M.?”

Annie’s smile waned. “Y…Yeah? How’d you know?” How _else_ could he?

Jeff laughed. “Can’t believe it. Greendale has a billion classes, and we still accidentally end up in one together.”

Annie’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened. “…Oh! That’s—that’s nice!” She cleared her throat.

“I’m surprised you’re allowed to use it as an elective, though,” Jeff said. “It was an option for me, since I’m law and the class I was _going_ to take isn’t offered anymore, but doesn’t your major have to do with,” he gestured around, “hospitals, and stuff?”

“I, ah, changed my major.” Annie cleared her throat again, unable to meet his eye. “I’m in Forensic Studies, now.”

“Really? What brought that on?”

Annie laughed weakly. “Oh… lots of stuff. It was a lot of, of figuring out that everything was going… _not_ the way I wanted it to.”

Jeff frowned, and now neither of them could look at each other.

Annie pointed at the water fountain. “Um, it’s full.”

By the time he finally looked, the cup had obviously been overflowing for a while. “Oh.” Jeff released the button. He tipped the cup a little so it was at less risk of spilling, and he offered it to Annie. “Would you mind bringing this to Pierce?”

“Huh…?”

Jeff’s eyes darted around. “Like Shirley said, I… should probably get going.”

Annie inhaled, trying to find words, but he was already brushing past her. “I, um… s-sure.” She offered a hopeful smile. “See you tomorrow?”

That got Jeff to hesitate, and he finally turned to meet her eye again. With something resembling the smiles he used to only give her, he said, “Looks like it.”

…

**Greendale Community College**

**Thirty minutes since it began (4 hours, 30 minutes remain)**

The hallway’s dead, wind howling through open windows. A handful of precarious lights dangle from the ceiling, casting oft-flickering shadows across the desolate tile floor. Drying splatters of paint cover walls on both ends of the hallway, indicating the firefight that had claimed this place within moments of the game’s beginning. Now, nothing moves—nothing but Jeff Winger.

He clutches his pistol in a two-handed death grip as he darts from desk to overturned desk, head moving and eyes flicking down each open classroom he passes, each hall he’s forced to momentarily expose himself to by passing. No danger right now, which is to be expected; the main halls in this wing have historically been sites of large battles between clubs or other alliances, so after the opening volleys of the game greatly thinned the numbers of the school’s largest coalitions, most of the school has wisely stayed away.

A door creaks from behind. Jeff dives for cover behind an overturned table, and doesn’t immediately peek to see if his paranoia is justified; he waits a few breaths, listens, steadies his hands, and only then, and only with his gun ready, does he peer above his cover.

A door he passed by earlier is swaying; the A/C is blowing hard, making it knock against the wall.

But that door wasn’t even open a minute ago.

Jeff is tempted to charge in there guns blazing. But it’s been over a year, and he can’t quite remember what’s past that door. Could be a small classroom, or it could be an auditorium packed with a massive ambush. He grits his teeth, and though he keeps his eye on that door, he backs away nonetheless, and continues as he was, cautiously. Walking backwards in a crouch like this is pretty uncomfortable, and kind of makes his back—

He hisses through his teeth and cuts off that thought.

In any case, he now knows he isn’t alone here. And battles tend to get ugly around these parts. Time to beat a retreat.

Jeff ducks down a narrower side hallway that’ll take him to… to… the Art department, that’s right. Overturned garbage cans and a slew of other paint-splattered debris make for lackluster cover; his pace quickens so he doesn’t get stuck here for too long.

The whizzing of disturbed air sends goosebumps across Jeff’s skin, as three _thuds_ of near misses splat against the wall behind him. He immediately dives behind a garbage can and hears two more shots fly overhead.

His mind racing, he glances at the three orange-colored splatters on the wall, judging their trajectory. His instincts had been correct to dive on the side of the trash can that he did; the shots were coming from ahead of him, further down the hall.

“Hooo BOY!” Malicious chortles come from the end of the hallway. “I’d know that huge target of a forehead anywhere. Do my eyes deceive me, or is this _Jeff Winger_ we have here?”

Jeff groans. _“Mike.”_ He peeks over his cover, and sure enough, there stands the bully, out in the open. Of course Mike is going sleeveless, but in this context, it almost makes it look like he’s wearing a bulletproof vest.

Mike’s mustache turns up in a smirk as he spies Jeff, and he fires two more haphazard shots to force his prey to duck. “It sure is! A bona fide study group member.”

“Study group member?” Jeff calls. “What are you talking about?”

“Finally found a live one! Let’s get huntin’, Bullies!”

_Ah, crap, they have a team name._

Mike brings two fingers to his mouth and whistles, and Jeff realizes he’s short on time and cover both. Heart pounding, his head swivels in search of an escape, and he fortunately spots an open classroom nearby.

Mike laughs as Jeff makes a dash for the door. “Where ya goin’, Winger?!” He lazily fires two rounds in Jeff’s direction.

Ducking under Mike’s parting shots, Jeff bursts into the classroom. The first thing he sees is an open window in the back corner of the room, exactly the escape he needs; the second thing he notices is the cluster of three smock-wearing students huddled around one of the desks. A guy and two girls, their heads snapping up to meet him with shocked gazes.

“Art Club?” Jeff whispers, confused. Their hands are off of their guns, and their bewilderment won’t last long. _Are they playing?_ He scoffs. _Of course they are. Everyone is._

Their guns are on a different table, and the dude and one of the women make a run for them. Jeff is faster and his aim is better. His first shot nails the guy in center mass; the woman takes a round in the back of the head, splattering paint into her hair. They both fall, caked in green goop.

The third Art student had frozen in fear, and Jeff hears Mike’s footsteps coming from the hallway. Jeff kicks the door shut and grabs a nearby chair, not letting his aim leave the last girl. He drags the chair one-handed and wedges it against the door.

Jeff walks closer. Her hands are up in surrender, trembling. He frowns and glances behind her at the desk the trio had all been huddled over; a mixing bowl and a variety of ingredients lay scattered around it. “What’s all this?”

“I-It was our final project last year,” the student stammers. “Well, end of our freshman year I mean, haha. Y’know, 2011 to 12. It’s weird, it’s like I always wanna say ‘last year’, but like, it was actually two school years ago! It’s gonna take me FOREVER to break that habit. Hahaha… ha.” Jeff is giving her a look, so she wilts. “We’re mixing, uh, paint remover.”

“Paint… remover?” Jeff shakes his head. “Why not wait until after the game?”

“Wait? Why wait? Waiting’s no fun!” She has a big grin now, wide-eyed and showing teeth. “I mean, unless waiting is the same as _stalling.”_

“Stalling—?”

He hears the scraping of chairs behind him, startling him into pulling the trigger. She doubles over with a groan, clutching the green splatter on her stomach, and Jeff starts to turn to face the adversary behind him—a fourth Art student, hidden in the corner—but he’s too slow. The last guy lines up the shot,

—And a paintball whizzes through the room and nails him between the eyes. The student drops before he could even register what had happened.

Lowering his gun, Jeff turns around. A paintball handgun is poking through the window, its barrel smoking.

“I know that gun,” Jeff murmurs. “Who else would put smoking effects on their paintball gun?” Lowering his weapon, he walks to the window. “Abed!”

Abed is stone-faced. His eyes continue scanning the room, not looking at Jeff. “Got your six, Jeff.”

Jeff laughs. “Saved me again, Abed. That’s two I owe you.”

Abed shakes his head. “Just one. That business on Cato Neimoidia doesn’t count.”

“…Let’s not make this another Star Wars reference party, Abed.”

Abed is finally satisfied the room is clear, so he leans against the windowsill and faces Jeff. “True, that’d get pretty old. I’ve been trying to figure out the theme of this paintball game, but haven’t had much luck so far. Falling on tried-and-true formulae is a crutch, I’ll admit it. Stop me if I circle back to western tropes.”

“Whatever you say, Abed. Anyway, why would you come to the Art department? It’s usually a warzone here.”

“Exactly,” Abed says. He vaults over the windowsill into the room and begins inspecting the crafts on each desk. Jeff follows along. “The Art department is the expert on all things paint, and has always been useful in cleaning up the messes afterward, too.” He picks up a bottle and shows it to Jeff. “Baby oil.” Another one: “Washing soda.” He sets them both down. “Ingredients for different kinds of paint remover.”

“I know, that’s what she told me,” Jeff says, gesturing at the Art student who lays still where he’d shot her. (She’s playing a game on her phone.) “What’s the big deal about it?”

“Paint remover can be used to cheat, Jeff,” Abed says. “Remove any trace of paint from skin, and clothes, and hair, and nobody can tell you were hit.”

Jeff scoffs. “Oh, come on. Do you really think anyone would get away with that?”

“Do you think the Dean will hold people accountable?” Abed counters. “I’ve already eliminated Mike once, and Annie has, too. Yet there he was. Do you believe the Dean would be willing to do the legwork to find out for sure if someone earned the win?”

“I…” _would hope so, considering how insane the prize is,_ Jeff almost says, but he trails off as he recognizes how right Abed is. Jeff definitely hadn’t been able to tell that Mike had already been shot. Annie’s word against Mike’s would hold some weight, but still, Annie… that is, the Dean… hm. Jeff shakes his head clear. “…So what can we do?”

Abed’s eyes twinkle. “We destroy it.”

One of the downed students is startled. “Y-You can’t just—”

Jeff shouts, “Quiet! You’re dead. Shut up.” The student is cowed, so back to Abed, “What do you mean, destroy it?”

“There are sinks at every desk,” Abed explains. “We dump all of it, then we—”

A loud banging comes from the door, and the chair Jeff had shoved against it rattles ominously.

Abed takes a breath. “Okay, we dump as much of it as we can, _then_ we book it. Cool?”

“Yeah.” Jeff stuffs his gun into the back of his pants. “Or, ‘cool cool cool,’ I mean.”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Jeff.”

Jeff and Abed get to work, dumping bottle after bottle of assorted liquids and powders down sinks and into trash cans. The banging at the door gets louder, and an agitated crowd can be heard outside. The dead Art students chew their nails, wondering how much trouble they’re going to get into for letting all these supplies go to waste.

Jeff takes a second to breathe. “Sheesh, Mike’s assembled a team and a half,” he mutters, though the excitement has placed a cocky grin on his face. “How’d he get that many people?”

Abed looks at him, and doesn’t say anything.

Almost half a minute more, and the desks are starting to get packed with empty containers, and the chair is almost jostled loose, and eventually, as Jeff is looking around for more bottles, Abed’s hand grips his forearm. “It’s time to go.”

“Yeah,” Jeff huffs, unholstering his gun.

Abed climbs out the window first, and Jeff after; he’s only got one leg through when the door busts open.

Jeff fires several panic shots into the doorway and beans the first person to come through. The next one takes cover in the doorway and blindfires into the room, missing Jeff completely and giving him the chance to slide his other leg out of the window. From outside, the window’s wide enough that Jeff and Abed have to both take an end in order to pull it shut. Then, they break into a run.

After a moment, they can hear the window scrape back open, but they don’t hear any paintballs flying by.

“Oh _Je-eeeff!”_

Jeff does halt, and he turns back to the window. Mike has both of his hands on the windowsill as he smirks from ear to ear.

He points at Jeff and Abed. “We’ve gotcha this time, study group! Every last one of ya is gonna be spittin’ up paint by 8 o’ clock!” He throws his head back in diabolical laughter.

Jeff raises his gun and fires. The round splatters against Mike’s vest, causing him to recoil in pain.

“Dumbass,” Jeff mutters, and he and Abed turn away.


	3. Cheaters

**Group Study Room F – August 2013**

**Two minutes since it began (4 hours, 58 minutes remain)**

Annie finishes her ponytail with a second loop through the hair tie. Her ear-to-ear smile fails to contain a squeal of excitement, and Abed and Troy, seated at the study table, glance up from loading extra magazines to give her a strange look. She bounces on her toes, practically shivering with eagerness.

“…Okay,” Troy finally says as he stands from the table and approaches her. “Here, loaded this for you.” He places a gun in her hands.

“I’ve already got one, but thanks!” She cheerfully pats the holstered revolver at her hip, but nonetheless, she stuffs the normal gun into the back of her jeans as a backup. “Guys, I’m _really_ excited about this.”

Abed tilts his head. “Are you? Couldn’t tell.”

Fifty percent chance he’s serious, but she decides she doesn’t care. Still beaming, “Paintball really gets the blood pumping! And sometimes we sneak in some nice bonding as a group, too.”

Troy shrugs. Can’t lie, her cheer’s infectious. “True true.” He slides a magazine into his gun and secures it with a smack. “I love the smell of paint in the morning! You guys ready to shoot this goo all over—nope, not finishing that.”

Abed looks like he’s gonna ask, but Annie just subtly shakes her head.

“Anyway, where’s Shirley?” Troy posits. The three of them look around the study room, as if they would find her chilling in the corner or something.

“Guess she decided not to play after all?” Annie pouts a little. “That’s too bad.”

“Unlikely,” Abed says, rising from his seat at the study table. “This is some kind of foreshadowing. Would make no narrative sense for her to say she’s joining and then not do it.”

“Sometimes people just change their minds,” Annie says with a shrug. “We’ll ask her after the—”

_Thunk!_

A paintball splatters against the study table. Abed, Annie, and Troy all immediately draw their guns and aim around in search of their assailant.

A woman’s solemn voice is heard from outside:

_“These study partners,_

_Ever meeting in one room,_

_Make for easy prey.”_

“Oh damn,” Troy breathes, “we have a Limerick Club?”

“Annie, you didn’t close the doors,” Abed notes. They can see silhouettes of students shuffling around between the study room and the entrance to the building; the figures are setting up vantage points behind desks and chairs, preparing for a counterattack from the three friends.

“Whoops,” Annie tries, with a weak smile. “Guess I was too excited?”

“Yeah, well, let’s get our butts outta here before we get trapped,” Troy says. He gestures at the study room’s back door.

Guns raised in case the poets outside decide to push their luck and enter the study room, the three of them slip out the back door.

Troy exits first and glances down each side of the hallway. “Clear right, clear left.”

“Let’s go left. We don’t want to get pinned down in this hallway.”

“Right.”

“No, left.” Abed kicks the door shut behind them.

“Left, right?” Troy says.

“Right, left.”

Annie steps in front of them both and raises a stern pointer finger. “I am _not_ letting you guys do this again! Last time it took an HOUR before you got bored.”

Troy sighs. “You’re right.”

Annie huffs and walks away from them.

“She’s left,” Abed says, and Troy finally breaks into a laugh before the two of them do their handshake.

The trio moves down the hall, swiveling their aim between the front and back. They cover both directions in front and behind, but they move quickly, knowing they could easily be surrounded by the Haiku Club if they linger too long. So, at that pace, they soon come across a path where the hall intersects with another, wider hallway…

Just to find another small group of students waiting there, paintball guns aimed directly at them.

The students, clad in blazers, do not immediately open fire; rather, someone is pushing to the front of their group, someone wearing a vest rather than a blazer, and with a mustache and shit-eating grin as well.

Mike smirks and proclaims, “The floor recognizes the study group, as _boned.”_

“The Debate Team,” Annie gasps. “Since when is Mike a member?” _But he’s not wearing the blazer…?_

The Debate Team takes aim, and Annie prioritizes the most annoying target: she takes a shot to punish Mike for his theatrics, easily nailing him in the chest. _First blood,_ she thinks, trying hard not to break into a huge grin. _Too easy._

With Mike groaning and falling to a knee, the Debate Team finally opens fire. The trio splits, Annie and Abed going right and Troy left; Annie and Abed take cover behind the corner they’d just crossed, while Troy makes it to the opposite side of the hall.

The clicking of plastic triggers and the impact of paintballs is deafening, so Annie has to shout across the hall: “Troy, run for it! We’ll meet back up at _the rally point,_ okay?”

Troy thinks for a second. “…Oh yeah, we _have_ one of those!” He gives an excited thumbs up before he takes off running. After a nod is exchanged between Annie and Abed, they sprint back the way they came.

Annie can hardly fight her grin as she runs. Paintball really does get the blood pumping.

…

**Greendale – October 2011**

**Junior year**

Greendale wasn’t _that_ big. Sure, there were definitely hundreds if not thousands of attending students Annie had never and would never meet, but the school wasn’t some amazing labyrinth where you could lose someone for good if you carelessly let go of their hand. That is to say, even though it had been a month since the housewarming party and the group was still down a member, it wasn’t as if Annie had never _had_ the chance to go talk to Jeff. It was purely a motivation issue.

Namely, the longer he stayed away, the angrier she got with him, and the less she wanted to be the one to go apologize and ask him to come back.

But Annie was no procrastinator. With the same nagging feeling she would get whenever she knew rent was coming up, or whenever she needed to set aside some extra time to study, or whenever the garbage disposal was broken and she’d need to contact maintenance (or bribe Troy), she knew _this_ was just another thing that she would eventually have to knuckle down and take care of.

Plus, she had a secret weapon. If admittedly a last resort.

It wasn’t like she knew Jeff’s schedule by heart, so she was pondering whether she should pester the Dean for details—based on his frantic grilling of the group a few weeks ago about _the reason my Jeffrey is never in the study room anymore,_ he’d probably be ecstatic to help Annie bring Jeff back in—but that proved to be unnecessary, as Annie happened to bump into him while she was lost in thought.

She had to take a step back, eyes wide with surprise. “…Jeff!”

He smiled at her. Charming, sure, but also a little too formal. More like a smile he’d force when humoring Pierce or the Dean, not… not the ones she was used to. He said, “Oh, hi.”

And that was all he had, apparently, since he tried to keep walking. Annie quickly slid in his way to stop him.

Didn’t take a genius to figure out where this was going, so he slumped his shoulders in defeat.

With the grace of ripping off a bandage, Annie declared, “Come back to the study group.”

Quick as ever, “It’s a little late for me to rejoin Biology.”

“Then I’ll catch you back up,” Annie challenged. “Unless you think I can’t?”

He rolled his eyes, though he did have to grin at that. “That’d be less about your motivation to tutor and more about mine to learn.”

Annie’s expression was still fierce. She didn’t want to use her secret weapon if she didn’t have to, but he was showing some uncharacteristic persistence that made her worry she might after all. Still: only as a last resort. “Then don’t re-enroll in Biology. Study whatever you want, but please start coming back to the study room. Please.”

She placed her fingertips on his arm, a gesture of platonic affection, but he flinched away from her, his expression jolting back to neutral. Not the reaction Annie was expecting, and she forgot whatever she was going to say next.

“That’s, that’s a bad idea,” Jeff murmured. “I’m not gonna come back, Annie.”

Secret weapon was tempting. Abed would’ve estimated its current charge as 25%. Or maybe her roommate was rubbing off on her, and she was just using ‘Abed would’ as an excuse. “Well, why not? Did I hurt your feelings, Winger? You’ve never had skin this thin before.”

“It’s not about being thin skinned, it’s about learning lessons. Can we—NOT have this conversation in the middle of the hall?”

40%. “Fine.” Despite the earlier observation of not needing to hold someone’s hand for fear of losing them, Annie nonetheless seized Jeff’s forearm and dragged him aside, some part of her suspecting he would’ve otherwise booked it out of there the moment she got out of his way. Seemed as likely as not, anyway.

Dropping his arm as soon as they were in a less crowded hallway, “This good enough?”

He rubbed his arm; her grip had been tight. “Geez, what’s _with_ you? Are you mad at me?”

50%. “Because you’re being so stubborn! I don’t know _what_ you’re trying to accomplish by playing keep-away like this, but consider the point taken. I’m sure all of us would happily apologize to you if it meant you came back.”

 _“You_ apologize to _me?”_ A new understanding lit in Jeff’s eyes. “…You actually don’t get it, do you?”

Annie’s brain jumped to a handful of conclusions that mostly pointed in the common direction of Jeff autoflagellating. _If he’s beating himself up that hard over our kiss, then make that 75%._ “Jeff…”

Jeff’s face was dire. “Annie,” he said, “Annie, you told me to stop being your friend.”

Annie’s brow furrowed and her mind raced. “What? I never…” She thought harder. “Wait… Do you mean after the fire axe incident?”

Jeff shrugged out an implied “yeah, duh.”

Annie’s spirit sagged. “…Are you still upset about that, Jeff? That was way before the housewarming party, even…”

“I’m not upset about it,” Jeff said evenly. “It was a red flag, and I should’ve taken note of it. Things have been…” he couldn’t meet her eye anymore, “different, between us.”

110%. No, 200%. 1000%. He couldn’t have tossed her an easier segue to her secret weapon. Annie had had her suspicions that this was what was going on—it wasn’t like she could forget their conversation about him “telling her how important she is, _from a distance.”_ Wasn’t like she didn’t constantly replay that conversation in her head, hunting for meaning, for subtext, for a reason to tug on that thread and see where it could possibly lead.

It should’ve been easy; Jeff in an odd moment of vulnerability, even down to avoiding her gaze, his insecurity laid bare and the reasons all but spoken. To it, all she had to say was her secret weapon, her ace in the hole to bring Jeff back: _“I love you.”_

But something stung.

His answer to all this was _more distance?_ His conclusion from—if Annie was reading this right—from realizing his feelings for her might _be_ something worthy of his attention, is that he should run away from them, leave the group entirely?

Her pride flared, and the secret weapon misfired.

“Then, would it change anything if I told you I loved you?”

Jeff’s eyes snapped onto her, while his brow furrowed. Annie met him with a defiant glare.

“Why would you tell me that?” Jeff asked. “What’s the angle?”

“The… angle?” No idea how to answer that.

Jeff briefly pondered his next words, then, resolved, placed his hands on both of her shoulders. “Look, I get it. Things are a little different without me. I’m kinda great, I know.” That attempt at a cocky grin wasn’t fooling anyone. “Just think of it as… ugh, I hate to enable Abed, much less _channel_ him, but think of it as…” his eyes squinted into a tighter wince with each word, “my… character… leaving… the show.” He squeezed his eyes shut, forced himself to ignore the embarrassment of having said that, and then met Annie’s eye again. “…Yeah. It’s not some tragedy, Annie. It’s not like you need to go force some big romantic moment to resolve things and win me back. This isn’t some season finale. It’s just how the… ‘show’ moves forward.”

“Then… what is _this?”_ Annie asked, looking down at his hands on her arms.

Jeff blinked. “Platonic… shoulder… holding?” The same wince per word.

“That excuse sucks, Jeff.”

He dropped his hands. “I just think it’s healthier if I put some… _space_ between you and me.” He cleared his throat. _“You_ being the general, er, whole study group, I mean. I need…” He raised his hands and took a step back. “…space.”

This wasn’t going according to plan, and Annie wasn’t sure if it was her temper or some strange melancholy that was making it so hard for her to speak. He’s _Jeff Winger,_ an unstoppable force that _she_ has the sole privilege of having wrapped around her finger, but now, the one time she really, _really_ needs him to just listen to her already, he rejects her.

How typical of Jeff to be so reliably unreliable.

“…Fine. Fine! Screw you I guess, Jeff. Have fun _cruising_ through community college on your own like you wanted from the start.”

Jeff sighed. “C’mon, Annie, that’s not what this is ab—”

Annie put up a hand to silence him. Her lips moved like she wanted to say something else, one last scathing line to _really_ make a wreck of him, make him understand how insufferable he was being, but nothing could come, nothing at all. Couldn’t even make a noise through the lump in her throat.

She could feel her lower lip starting to quiver, so to hide that, she turned on her heel and marched away. Only wiped away the first tear after she’d rounded the corner and was sure he wouldn’t see.

…

**Greendale – August 2013**

**90 minutes since it began (3 hours, 30 minutes remain)**

_This one’s good._

At a time like this, Britta can’t lie to herself: she’s not exceptional at a whole lot of things. Psychology is hard, relationships suck, and she’s been known to have occasional off days when it comes to sex. She could also stand to be a little kinder to herself. And only, _only_ when high on the confidence of playing paintball can she admit those flaws, because _this,_ paintball, is something she’s good at, for real. She was the runner up her freshman year, and she’s never had a bad game since.

So, wielding a pair of guns akimbo while ducking behind an overturned couch, her enemy’s paintballs flying overhead, Britta has to smirk as her adrenaline spikes. Whoever her mystery opponent across the hall is, they’ve been playing an effective cat-and-mouse game with her for a while now, with neither of them having had a good shot on the other this whole time.

_Yeah, this one’s good._

She cracks her neck, preparing herself, and then does a combat roll out of cover. On her feet, she dashes to the side, mashing both triggers and sending a storm of paint in her adversary’s direction. She hears a few near misses splatter against the wall behind her as she runs, but that only amplifies the thrill. Her dual-wielded assault drives her opponent behind the cover of a trash can.

Britta slows to a walk. “Oh _hell_ yeah,” she calls out. “Now you’re hiding, huh?” She fires two more shots per gun. “Gotcha now, bitch.” She starts walking forward; her opponent tries to peek their cover, which she dissuades with a few warning shots, getting them to duck back down.

“Good game,” Britta continues, as she’s almost upon the can. “It was a fun hunt, but like I said: I’m winning this one.” She plants her foot on the trash can, ready to kick it over.

“…Britta?”

The voice came from her left. Britta recognizes it, but doesn’t lower her guns. “Annie, is that you?”

“Britta!” Annie starts jogging closer, and there’s a sudden rush of motion from behind the trash can. Britta immediately trains her guns on her opponent.

Troy doesn’t pull the trigger on Britta, instead groaning. “God—Britta, it was _you_ chasing me this whole time?”

Britta smirks. “Troy, huh? Didn’t know it was you, but makes sense I guess. No wonder you were running so fast.”

 _“Wow,_ racist much?”

She blinks. “N-No, I meant, like, banter, just calling you a chicken, I _definitely_ didn’t mean—”

She’s stammering over herself now. _Too easy,_ Troy thinks. He nods at Annie. “Glad you made it. I don’t see Abed with you though? He didn’t…?”

“He’s fine.” Annie holsters her paintball revolver and puts her hands on her hips. “We were attacked by the Drama Club and got separated. He’s Abed, so he’s probably still out there.”

“Man, we’ve been havin’ the WORST luck. I get separated from y’all after we’re caught between those poets and the Debate Team, and then y’all run into Drama right after that?”

Annie crosses her arms. “I think it’s _not_ luck.”

“What do you—”

Britta cuts off their conversation with a laugh. “Nice try, Bill Nye.” She aims one gun at each of them, and they both have to roll their eyes at her. “I think you two’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not on your team _by default._ I’m planning on winning this one solo, because I’m just that good.” She smirks. “Bitch.”

 _“Britta,”_ Annie groans.

 _“Annie,”_ Britta mocks back.

 _“Abed!”_ Troy gasps.

Annie glances at him, exasperated. “Troy…” Then she notices he’s looking behind her, so she turns around.

Abed and Jeff are down the hall, jogging closer, and Jeff’s wearing a muscle shirt that is doing him more than a few favors. Annie has to bite her tongue to preclude any stupid reactions, while Jeff trains his aim on Britta, noting her two raised guns.

Britta’s smirk widens. “Jeff Winger.” She turns one of her guns from Troy to him, causing Jeff to stop. “Actually playing this year, huh?”

Jeff shrugs. “Took a year off, figured I’d use this game as a warm-up stretch. It’s about time Greendale remembers who’s on top around here.”

“Awesome,” Troy says.

“I’m thinking more of a ‘new year, new Greendale’ kind of thing,” Britta says. She takes aim. “Let’s say, _under new management.”_

_“Awesome.”_

“You take that shot and you’re dead,” Jeff says. “You don’t seriously think you could take out all four of us?”

“Suddenly you’re teaming up with them?” Britta says. “Thought you were going alone.”

“Not gonna lie, that was the plan, but considering they outnumber me and aren’t immediately trying to shoot me right now, I’m flirting with the idea of a team up. Might even take the idea to dinner, show it a good time.”

“Classic Winger, taking the easy way out.”

“Easy way out would be stepping in front of a paintball and taking a nap on a day where we don’t have class.”

Annie checks her watch.

Britta continues the repartee. “I can help you with that, and your buddies too.”

“Not so much ‘buddies’ as ‘I’m not pointing a gun at them right now’,” Jeff counters. “I’m down to run with the group for a while. You?”

“I’ll take my chances.” Britta takes steps back, eyes flicking between the four of them. Jeff and Troy have their guns lined up on her, but Abed and Annie just share a look.

“Guys, we need to team up,” Annie insists. “We don’t need you guys shoving paint down each other’s throats, and I’m already sick of this banter. If we stick together, we stay alive.”

“Because that’s always worked so well,” Britta mocks. “Lemme run down the list, hm? Freshman year: we stick together and get picked off until only Jeff and I are badass enough to make it to the end. Sophomore year: we team up against the City College stormtroopers and mostly get blasted, though I almost made it to the end. Junior year: I almost won on my own, and _would’ve_ if it weren’t for Pierce’s whole 1920’s mafia thing getting out of hand and forcing them to cancel the whole game.”

“Abed kinda had that one in the bag, actually,” Troy points out.

Britta ignores him. “Long story short, I’m _not_ gonna be a team player this time.”

Abed cocks an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to have to be. You can’t take them all on.”

“It’s not me versus the world, it’s me versus whoever tries to fight me.” She gestures with her guns. “Is that gonna be you?”

“But it _is_ you versus the world. Well, it’s _us_ versus the world.”

Jeff and Troy frown at Abed, while still keeping Britta in the corner of their eyes. “What are you talking about?” Jeff mutters to him.

“Think about it,” Annie chimes in. “It’s too suspicious how we keep getting pinned down by these clubs. Why do you think that is?”

Jeff shrugs dismissively. “I dunno. I kinda went after the Art Club myself.”

“He ended up there on accident,” Abed clarifies, earning a glare from Jeff.

“They’re trying to take us out,” Annie says. “That obnoxious group, the Bullies? They’re trying to eliminate the study group first. And they’re teaming up with other clubs to do it.”

“Wh…” Jeff shakes his head. “That makes _no_ sense. I’m not even _in_ the study group…” His voice gets quieter as he recalls Mike’s taunts: _We’ve gotcha this time, study group!_ “…anymore.”

“Tell that to the Bullies.” Abed checks his magazine, then clicks it back in place. “They’ll track us here any minute. Mike knew where we were going, so he'll be right behind us.”

“Mike?” Annie says, surprised. “Didn’t I get him?”

“Not according to him, or his mysteriously clean clothes.”

“Whoa, people are cheating?” Britta murmurs, her smirk finally fading, and her aim wavering to match.

 _“That’s_ where the line is for you?” Troy asks.

Annie looks around, concern starting to show on her face. “How do we even beat that?”

“Could always fight fire with fire,” Jeff muses, which earns him an eyeroll from Annie.

 _“Absolutely_ not,” she replies. “I’d rather disqualify myself.”

“Jeff and I already destroyed most of the paint remover we could find in the Art department,” Abed explains. “They won’t be able to cheat for much longer. We wear them down, then we win.”

“H-Hold _on!”_ Britta exclaims, and her guns go up again. “I’m—L-Like I _said—”_

Jeff gives her a serious look. “There can only be one winner, Britta. By the end, we’ll turn on each other. I say we put that off for a while as long as you have people who are willing to help you; what do _you_ think?”

Britta purses her lips. Her grip on her guns is tight, tight enough to tremble. “What if you’re making all of this up?”

“Yes, Britta, you caught us. We have invented an entire narrative based on a middle-aged bully cheating at paintball _solely_ for the purpose of deceiving you into joining our team, because we’re just that hopeless without you.”

Britta glares at him. _“Excuse_ me for being a little skeptical about—”

_“It’s them!”_

Eyes and guns swivel towards the disturbance down the hall. Vicki stands there, a paintball gun in hand, an overly thick jacket covering her, and a nervous expression on her face.

“Vicki?” Jeff asks. “What club dragged you into this?”

“I-I haven’t joined any clubs yet,” Vicki shouts back. “I just don’t want you guys to win _again!”_

Annie frowns sadly. “Is that really what this is all about?”

Vicki suddenly swells with confidence. “We’re not letting your study group have ANOTHER year all about YOU!” She turns to face a different hallway, puts her fingers to her mouth, and whistles. “Bullies! They’re over here!”

The sound of unseen, running footsteps is way too loud. Way too many. Britta’s heart sinks as she realizes just how stacked the odds are getting against her. With a weak chuckle, “Uh, hey Vicki, I’m not running with these guys. Mind if I switch sides?”

 _“Really,_ Britta?” Jeff and Annie say at the same time.

Vicki looks back at Britta, disgusted. “No! Jesus, you’re the worst.”

Britta pouts.

“We should book it,” Troy says.

Jeff glances around at his new teammates. “Anyone remember how that old saying goes? ‘Always shoot the messenger,’ right?”

In one fluid motion, Jeff swivels to face Vicki, takes a knee, braces his gun against his other forearm, and takes a shot at Vicki. It hits her straight on, covering her jacket with green paint.

“Niiiice,” Troy says with a grin, while Jeff stands up, his cockiness exuding from him almost unbearably. Annie has to take a breath to compose herself.

“Dammit!” Vicki hisses, and she unzips her jacket and starts wiggling out of it.

Jeff’s smirk vanishes. “Oh, c’mon, _really?_ You’re cheating too?!”

“Why else would I be wearing a jacket in August, dumbass?”

The study group members shrug and nod at each other as if to say “yeah, makes sense.”

“You guys… don’t deserve to win,” Vicki says, partially to herself, as she continues removing the paint-splattered clothing. “It’s okay if I cheat because…”

Jeff starts to raise his gun again, but Abed’s hand stops him. _“Now_ we should book it,” he says, backed up by nods from Troy.

Jeff is exuding bitterness rather than the earlier arrogance, having had his moment stolen. “Fine,” he snarls, and the team makes a break for it.

As the others run off, Britta fidgets with her guns and watches them go. She looks back at Vicki, then back to her old study group, and finally, with a curse under her breath, she sprints after her old friends.

…

**Group Study Room F – January 2012**

**Junior year**

Britta had a headache.

Across the table from her, Shirley smiled.

These two things were related.

“I can _not_ believe you’re still on my case for this,” Britta muttered.

“Oh, I apologize if I’ve been speaking too loudly, Brit-ta,” Shirley sang. “I see from the way you are rubbing your temples that you had _other_ plans last night.”

“Are you insinuating I’m hungover?” Britta snorted. “God, I _wish.”_

Annie glanced between the two of them, then looked to Abed or Pierce or Troy for help, only for them to all pretend they didn’t notice her. Realizing she was on her own, Annie took a breath and formed a patient smile. “Hey, it’s okay, Britta. There actually weren’t that many boxes for us to move. Troy and Abed got most of them by themselves!”

“And you’re _welcome,”_ Troy added, punctuated by a handshake with Abed.

“Thank you, Troy,” Annie said, cheerful.

Shirley nodded, “Mm-hm, it’s true, we managed just fine…” and she left the implied _‘without you’_ hanging poignantly in the air, a jab to further pound away at Britta’s skull.

“I didn’t get _drunk_ last night,” Britta snarled.

Shirley didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, I’m sure you must’ve had plenty of other activities to occupy yourself with. I know the thought of stepping inside a church—even just to lift a few boxes—disgusts you, but I just hoped you would be able to overlook that for our friendship.”

“What about the time I needed your help cat sitting back in December? I pretty distinctly remember you bailing on that, Mrs. Right.”

“Your place reeks of the devil’s lettuce, Britta. What if I were to have been pulled over on the drive home and they smelled it on me?”

“What if I were driving home from that church and they could smell the self-righteousness and delusion on me?”

Shirley’s expression sharpened, and her mouth moved as if to counter, but she quickly pursed her lips to suppress whatever barb was coming. She eventually forced out, “I… _forgive_ you for saying that, Britta.”

“Oh yeah, please, highroad me. God, you’ve been so _—insufferable_ lately.” Britta started gathering her books. “I’m gonna study alone today.”

“Wha—” Annie started, and the way Britta was standing and turning away and not quite looking at her struck her with an intense feeling of déjà vu that made her stomach twist painfully, but before she could think of anything to say to keep Britta from leaving, Shirley spoke first.

“Oh, are you going to be the next one to drop out, then?”

Annie could barely believe her ears. _“Shirley!”_ she gasped, and Britta’s expression was equally indignant, if more prideful.

“Oh, yeah, I bet you’d _loooove_ that,” Britta hissed. She slammed her books back down on the table to free her hands so she could jab an accusing finger at Shirley. “I’m sure you’d be ECSTATIC about getting your way again. No wonder you’ve been so impossible to work with the past few months, when you figured out you can just get upset and make anyone who pisses you off leave the study group! That _completely_ explains this whole air of superiority you’ve had ever since.”

“And now the psych major is gonna diagnose me?” Shirley glared right back at her. “You haven’t exactly been a bundle of joy to be around ever since Jeff left either! He called you on your stuff, kept you humble, and now you disparage my religion, my personality, _anything_ your temper wants to target, as much as you want!”

“Don’t forget your baking,” Britta quipped. “You know, Jeff might’ve been the one who said we should stop enabling that addiction, but it was a decision we all agreed with. It was annoying _everyone.”_

Troy, Abed and Pierce hid their faces behind their textbooks.

Shirley threw her hands up. “Oh, and now we’re gonna beat this dead horse, huh? _Real_ mature, Britta. If you think Jeff was so right, then feel free to leave just like he did!”

“If you _want_ me to leave then say so to my face!”

“I—”

“No! Never mind.” Britta put her hands up, smiling sarcastically. “I’m not giving you that privilege. I’m leaving, Shirley. Congrats again on getting exactly what you want.” She seized her books, clutched them to her hip, and stomped out of the room without another word.

Pierce huffed, annoyed. “Troy, did you not have popcorn _this_ time either?!”

“Dude, read the room.”

.

**Cafeteria**

Jeff grumbled to himself, “Is this gonna be a trend every couple months?” Because as he watched from his spot in the lunch line, Britta was rushing across the room in a beeline for him. Knowing this would either be heartwrenching or annoying and not caring which (and naturally expecting some combination of the two), Jeff returned his attention to the buffet and barely acknowledged Britta when she finally stopped to hover by his side. Even from the corner of his eye he could see the shine of her grin.

“Jeff.”

“If you’re looking for your study group, my bet’s on them being in study room F.”

“Clever. Anyway, I have an idea.”

“This oughta be good.”

Britta continued to follow Jeff as he exited the lunch line with his tray, and Jeff continued to not even bother glancing at her. “Look, I was thinking the two of us could start a _rival_ study group!”

“A rival… what?” Even though math was one of those subjects he would _exclusively_ cheat on, Jeff was still capable of putting two and two together. “Did you leave, too?”

“Yeah, yesterday. Anyway, I figure it’ll be pretty easy for us to poach Abed and Troy, or maybe just one of them so they can reenact some kind of civil war-style “brother fighting brother” conflict when we—”

“Whoa there. Nice to see some passion from you, but I’m not interested.”

If Britta had been the type to be discouraged by _that,_ their friendship would’ve dissolved ages ago. As it was, she didn’t even miss a beat. “Figured you’d say that, but it’d be pretty easy for us to look at classes that we could take together before our group starts meeting.”

“Ah, yes, that was my hang-up. You know me so well.”

 _“Jeff.”_ She said that definitively, even stopping, in a way that would usually guilt Jeff into halting and turning around and humoring her and getting dragged into something ridiculous. Instead, he kept on walking; really committing to the “don’t want to come back” bit. Britta had to roll her eyes and exhale impatiently before chasing after him again.

“Listen to me, Jeff. Remember that time we kicked Pierce out of the group and then we all realized that we needed him?”

“I’d like to think we’ve all grown past that level of codependence. Also, thanks for comparing me to Pierce. Really rubs salt in the wound.”

Ooh, forget whatever she was going to say, _that_ was something Britta could latch onto. “Wound, huh? So you admit you’re less happy being out of the group?”

That hit a nerve. Jeff’s jaw set, and finally, he stopped walking and turned around to face Britta. She crossed her arms and smirked up at him.

“No, Britta, I’m _overjoyed_ that I don’t hang out with my friends anymore. I couldn’t be happier about not being around to make fun of Pierce or you or Abed. Why would I ever wish things could go back to the way they were?”

“God, tell me how you really feel. You could’ve just come back. Everyone would’ve forgiven you after, like, a week.” She shrugged. “Well, except maybe Shirley, but you seem to know how to handle her.”

Jeff looked away, still clearly annoyed. Britta’s expert psychology brain sleuthed out that there was obviously something more to it, though her patience was being tried by his whininess; “You used to be so easy to deal with before you started _caring._ Why can’t I just bribe you with sex and get this ball rolling?”

“…Because you aren’t a prostitute?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Britta glared directly into his eyes. “Give me one good reason why you left and I’ll leave you alone.”

Jeff took a breath. Something inside was twisted, a knot that told him to hunker down and be stubborn and say nothing, but hell, across the last few sessions with his therapist, he was feeling a little more open than usual, so screw it. “Britta, I kissed Annie. I KISSED her. It was only a matter of time before I did something worse to her.”

That took the wind out of Britta’s sails. _“…To_ her? What, do you think she hated it?”

“No, I don’t, but I don’t think she gets how big of a red flag that was. Britta, I don’t need to tell _you_ that I have historically not been the greatest to women.”

The gears were turning, but only when they finally clicked did Britta realize just how slowly those gears had been going. Suddenly, it was incredibly obvious, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out before: “You’re in _love_ with her!”

Jeff scoffed. “Please. I don’t believe in that. Annie’s the best, and she’s hot, and we got along great, and for a while there I _wanted_ her. That’s all there is to it, and that’s why I was… concerned, that I would hurt her in a way she really didn’t deserve.”

“As opposed to all those other women who _do_ deserve it,” Britta said dryly.

“Ha, ha. You know what I mean.” He shook his head, his gaze growing slightly distant. “I kissed her… I actually kissed her.” His eyes focused on Britta again. “It was _proof_ that I just can’t help myself around Annie anymore. I had to put distance between us, because I really, really don’t want to mess her up.”

“So you took the harmless route of… not being her friend anymore?”

“Like you’re one to talk, Miss Dropout the Second.”

Britta scowled. “I left because Shirley is the absolute _worst.”_

“And that isn’t hurting anyone, either?”

“I left for _myself,_ not out of some misguided attempt to save someone else’s feelings.”

“Here’s a hypothesis,” Jeff began, and oh boy, he was going into lawyer mode. “Maybe I did too. Maybe _I_ left because I am tired of the runaround, and maybe I wanted to get ahead of any shaming I’d get from you and Shirley for when Annie and I would _inevitably_ sleep together, hurting somebody’s feelings along the way. Maybe I figured getting laid wasn’t worth the crap I’d get afterwards.”

A disgusted look touched Britta’s expression. No, no, no, all of that was way too gross, even for Jeff. “…Jesus, how much of a commitment-phobe are you?”

“Look. I’m not rejoining the study group, and I’m not starting a _new_ one to compete with theirs. It’s over. The group isn’t the same and it never will be again. But that’s no reason to be sad or to try to ‘fix’ things. You just need to take it easy, like me. Cruise along.” He patted her on the shoulder.

Britta looked down, frowning. She hated, _hated_ to admit it whenever Jeff Winger was having an effect on her, but her heart was racing with fear and anxiety and more and more of her was screaming _he’s right._ Her voice was shaking when she finally replied. “But… I don’t want it to end. I just thought…”

 _…What?_ _What_ did _I think? He’s right, the study group’s broken up, for real this time. I was just being naïve._ Britta kicked the ground, pouting. _Of course a rival study group wouldn’t work. Abed’s seen a million sitcoms where something like that’s failed._

With a tired smile, she slumped her shoulders in defeat. “…Over two whole years. Guess I just can’t believe it’s over.”

Jeff grinned down at her. Patted her arm one more time before dropping his hand. “Like I said, nothing to be sad about. All good things, you know?” He shrugged. “And if you ever change your mind, you could always go back to _them.”_

“No,” Britta responded bitterly, “I’m not gonna give Shirley that satisfaction.” She raised her finger, glaring defiantly at Jeff as if he cared enough to argue the point. “I got the last word! I got to leave on my own terms and gave her a piece of my mind while I was at it. I’m not going back to her.”

“Well, do you wanna—” Jeff began, but Britta was storming off before he could finish saying “be added to the boys’ chat so we can keep in touch?”

When Britta kicked open the doors and stomped out of the cafeteria (drawing plenty of eyes in doing so), Jeff just shrugged and continued looking for an open table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The updates will most likely not be weekly past this point. There were lots of rewrites that slowed this chapter and the next chapter down, and I’m trying to keep a decent buffer of chapters ahead of what’s uploaded. 
> 
> Most of this chapter was written out of order and moved around to improve the pacing, which is very, very uncharacteristic of me. I kept things a little more freeform this time and let myself write things out of order to keep myself from getting stuck. This workflow was slower than usual, but that might just be because I'm not used to it yet. It's definitely gonna be something I continue to do in later chapters, because it’s very fun, keeps me motivated, and, again, isn't something I do very often.
> 
> Annie's rejection was a huge sticking point on this chapter and took several full rewrites. I found it very hard to make it feel decisive for their relationship as it was at that point, but not unsalvageable, and as “Jeff and Annie” as I could make it feel. Hope I did alright!
> 
> Next chapter coming when it’s done. :)


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